Imperfect
by enm7
Summary: “Truth lies not in what we believe but rather in what we see. Hermione finally sees.


Disclaimer: No profit is being made by the distribution of this story. All characters and Harry Potter-related words are the property of JK Rowling and her publishing house.

_Inspired in part by "Verification" by Em North_

This is my first Harry Potter fanfic, and my first fic of any kind in a looooong time. Be gentle!

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**_Imperfect._**

Hermione lay stretched out on her bed, her shoeless feet dangling off one side, while her head, propped up in her chin, balanced precariously close to the other side. She idly paged through 'We Weekly', a magazine focusing on the wizarding world's celebrities. As she passed by pages of Lavender Brown's latest break-up and Padma & Parvati's latest clothing venture, she sighed. These women were beautiful, made all the more radiant by their triumphant defeat of Voldemort only 3 years prior. Her fellow Hogwarts classmates had all stepped to the forefront of wizarding society, some gracefully, like Harry, and others with a lack of tact and dignity that made her cringe. That had been Ron's problem. He had embraced his celebrity and began to buy into all the hype. He had become a stranger to her, going out with a new witch every week and promoting every product he could for quick cash. After seeing the latest Weasley's Wheaties commercial while out to lunch with her, Harry had shook his head and sighed, something he did a lot of these days. As he stood, every eye in the restaurant shot to him, weighting him down with their stares as he strode out of the restaurant, home to Ginny. That had been weeks ago and she hadn't seen either of them since, preferring her reclusive lifestyle in he modest apartment where she was free to write and read and research as she pleased.

She rolled onto her back, bringing the magazine with her, holding it above her head as she continued to scan the pages. Her eyes raked the women's bodies, girls she knew well from their time as roommates. Hermione dropped the magazine next to her and dragged herself off of the large bed. She walked to the mirror that stood regally in the corner of her room, one her most prized possessions that Dumbledore had left to her in his will, to remind her always to be true to herself. As she approached the mirror, it geared up for another chat with its lonely owner, but stopped short at the look in her eyes, a look so forlorn it was foreign to it. Hermione slowly stretched her arms over her head, pulling her shirt up and over, before dropping it on the ground carelessly. She slowly unbuttoned her jeans and lowered the zipper, before shrugging out of them. Standing in her utilitarian undergarments she observed in silence, the mirror too shocked to say anything. She unhooked her bra and it slid down her arms to join her other clothes at her feet. Her underwear soon lay at her feet as well and still, Hermione just looked.

She began at her head, taking in the tangle of her that fell down past her shoulders, glancing at the shallow pits in her skin from her teenage struggle with acne, her dry chapped lips. Her eyes dropped down. Her breasts hung heavy, one slightly larger and lower than the other, her nipples tight in the cool air. Down again, to the round belly below her belly button and the neatly trimmed hair at the apex of her thighs. Then her rounded hips from which dropped two average legs, the knees slightly scarred from various adventures in her youth. Finally, at her feet, she wiggled her toes. Her toes waved back up at her in a bright coral tone, something she had done on a whim a few days earlier in one of her rare emergences from the apartment. She scanned back up. Once more Hermione sighed. Here she stood, in her home, faced with the truth. She was imperfect. Behind her books and her smarts and her unflagging confidence was a woman who was just learning who she really was, who was just dealing with all the ins and outs of her body, who had hidden herself for so long he no longer knew who she was.

Hermione's eyes drifted over the mirror that her late Headmaster had given her. It was a gorgeous mirror, carved from beautiful cherry wood and stained a deep red-brown. The mirror was bound by carvings of various magical creatures and lands. At the top a scroll unwound itself to reveal its message to the viewer. There carved into the wood in a steady, firm hand was a quote, "Truth lies not in what we believe but rather in what we see." She pondered the quote as she often did. Today it seemed that it held more meaning that ever before. Alone for so long, tied only to society by the Daily Prophet and her sporadic purchase of gossip magazines, she had begun to forget about herself. She had begun to stop seeing herself, her life for what they were and instead begun to look only at the glossy splash of others' lives on the pages and taken them for truth. She looked at her body again, the quote rolling through her mind. Hermione re-evaluated, standing a bit straighter. Once more she began at her head, where her wild, untamed hair careened around her neck, full of passion and vibrance. Her chapped lips stood out as a reminder that just last weekend she had stood out on the moors, watching her latest project surpass everyone's expectations through its test-run. Her hips she knew swayed as she walked, a reminder of her femininity. Her scarred knees were the product of a particularly difficult quest for a horcrux with her boys, the memories of which brought a soft smile to her lips.

Once again she ended up at her toes, the coral shining back at her, the lacquer winking in the dim light of the oncoming evening. She was imperfect, yes. But she was also a war heroine, who had fought on the front lines of a bloody civil war, a strong woman who could hold her own in a meeting of self-aggrandizing men at the Ministry, an intellectual whose research was changing the face of the wizarding world. She was Hermione Granger, simple as that. Taking a final look up her body, she reached her eyes again, giving herself a firm nod in the mirror. She abandoned the pile of clothes in front of the mirror and retreated to her closet. She pulled out a matching set of bra and panties that normally made her blush, a fitted white blouse and a shapely pencil skirt. She threw them on and stepped into some patent leather high heels. She clacked her way to the front door of her apartment, flicking lights of as she went, before exiting her apartment and firmly locking the door behind her, the protective wards snapping back into place as she passed through. 'We Weekly' lay curled in the bottom of the bin. She was Hermione Granger, woman, and after this afternoon she needed a bloody drink.

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Please review if you have a moment, I would love constructive criticism and/or encouragement. Also, would you like to be my beta? Let me know, I'd love to have you.


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